Microsoft issues a dire warning that its Home Server product may irreversibly damage pictures, torrents, and other files

Microsoft just announced a big bug that many users of its Windows
Home Server users may wish to take note of. Microsoft warned users not to
edit files stored on their Windows Home Servers. Editing and saving files
on a home computer connected to Windows Home Server can lead to data corruption
within a week it has been discovered.

Microsoft describes the problem, stating, "When you use certain programs
to edit files on a home computer that uses Windows Home Server, the files may
become corrupted when you save them to the home server. Several people have
reported issues after they have used the following programs to save files to
their home servers."

Microsoft details that the following file types are among those affected:

Photos

Office Outlook files (2007)

Office OneNote files (2003/2007)

Microsoft Money files

Quicken files

QuickBooks files

Torrent files

Microsoft
has not yet announced a concrete schedule for the release of a patch to fix the
problem. It blames the current bug on an internal glitch with Windows
Home Servers' shared folders code. Microsoft is currently trying to
reproduce the bug and better understand it.

An anonymous
blog was posted on Microsoft's developers pages stating that
Microsoft's Windows Home Server Team is working full-time through the holidays
to try to fix the problem, so obviously it is a relatively significant issue.

Windows has aggressively tried to market its Home Server products and grow a
business in consumer backup storage. The Windows Home Server software retails for $189.99,
while a number of partners produce
the physical hardware. Among these is the HP 500GB EX470,
which retails for $599.99.

So for a
total of about $790 you can have a working home server set up for backup
operations -- you just probably don't want to back up your pictures, emails, or
torrent files on it for now.

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